Previously, we had shared the story of the completion of 6 months of Arthan Foundation. We touched upon our experiences of interacting with school children in Delhi government schools and talking to them about career planning. Our aim was to help them decide a path for themselves. Our pre-pilot was on a smaller scale with 30 girls from a school in Sangam Vihar. Several stories from the pre-pilot taught us about the reality of these children, while some made us disheartened, others were a simple reality check. A few of them had ideas about a future but lacked information on how to go about the career, or what were the minimum education requirements to meet them. On the other hand, a few girls had no idea at all. We were prepared to go on this journey where each story will be unique and decided to dive into the education system to start a conversation about career aspirations.

In February, we partnered with Teach for India fellows to implement our modules on career planning and work readiness. Through them, our workshops were conducted all over Delhi, covering 10 government schools and 500 children. The workshops were conducted over a period of 3 weeks. This time, we interacted with more students, and each one with new ideas, visions and dreams. Some stories stuck with us, and some we hope to work within the coming years.

During one of our workshops in a Delhi Government School

While we are still looking at our pilot findings, initial results show that 43 % of students showed interest in higher education and the options related to it. For instance, Astha told us that the classes had helped her analyse her strengths and understand the importance of interests, values, soft skills and other criteria in deciding and achieving success in one’s career.

At the same time, 37% of students could look up resources relating to the career options they were interested in. With good digital literacy skills, the students were confident enough to do a Google search, read up on the professions they wanted to pursue and what were the requirements or eligibility criteria for the same.

Finally, 32% of the children were sure about on the subjects they wanted to choose after the class tenth.

These are not our final findings as we are still evaluating some of our modules. However, the first trends have shown us a new direction, we have learnt about more students and what stops them from pursuing their goals, their problems and the solutions. The results from our pilot will help us to further expand on our module and make additions to the same.

Going forward, we want to work with 10,000 children across Delhi and support these children in identifying their goals, pursuing them as they move from school to the world of work. We have started a crowdfunding campaign to raise money to support more children and you can help us achieve our goal. Donate now.